Author | Joseph L. Selby

Category: Uncategorized

  • REVISIOOOOON! REVISION.

    I love revision. My love for revision is inversely equivalent to my love for writing queries. When I get into a groove on revising, the words to “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof change to “Revision,” and I hear the chorus shouting it over and over in my head. I’m 1/3 of the way through…

    Read more

  • Pay Attention, Stupid

    Google Home Page has been increasingly deficient in updating modules with new blog posts. I follow a collection of industry people who post daily and lately, some of their posts haven’t been showing up until days later. That was another impetus for me to switch from LJ to Blogger. The Blogger Dashboard is much more…

    Read more

  • Hobo Writing

    So I live in New Hampshire (Nashua). I work in Massachusetts (Boston). While this may seem extreme to drive from one state to another for someone living in the middle of a huge state (read any state not in New England, Delaware, Maryland, or Hawaii), it’s not that far. I drive 20-30 minutes to the…

    Read more

  • The Hard Part

    I got a pass on WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING today. This particular agent has looked at BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE as well and is very good about giving feedback with rejections. What struck me today is that his comment was very similar to a comment Elizabeth Poole gave me when she beta-read the…

    Read more

  • QUERY: JEHOVAH’S HITLIST (a draft)

    Jehovah knows a secret. On Sundays when they parachute down the charity box, you can see where they open the sky to make the drop. The first one to the box gets the best charity: food rations, medicine, ammunition. Today all he needs is a new pair of shoes. He nabs himself a pair of…

    Read more

  • Pre-Ponderance

    This isn’t a fully formed story idea, but something I wanted to write down for later. Today is my birthday (and if I weren’t so tired, I had a completely different post I wanted to make but now I’m just going to go watch “Repo Men” instead). For my birthday, I went up to the…

    Read more

  • You Gotta Fight for Your Right…to Read?

    I’ve offered tacit support of SPEAK during the flair-up against the comments made in Springfield last week. I didn’t hop on the bandwagon and speak out against it for a couple reasons. First, I’m fat, and doubt I could hop on a bandwagon if I wanted to. Second, I don’t think my message would reach…

    Read more

  • QUERY: THE TRIAD SOCIETY (a draft)

    Part of the webinar I posted about earlier is a query critique. I’ve already queried out BM&BBQ and WCO, so it’s time to bite the bullet on TTS. Below is a first draft query letter. Your constructive feedback is greatly appreciated. Otwald d’Kilrachen intervenes when Torvald d’Bluefire’s dissolution of an affair turns violent. Otwald delivers…

    Read more

  • An Incredible Opportunity!

    Kristin Nelson, founder and queen bee of Nelson Literary Agency has just turned it up to 11. Thursday, September 30th, in conjunction with Writer’s Digest, she is hosting a webinar on improving your SF/F queries. It’s as if she’s been reading my journal! (Um…high Kristin!) Yes yes yes! This is totally for me. I’m always…

    Read more

  • The Impotence of Proofreading of Proofreading

    For those of you who do not know, my day job is in publishing as well. I commute to Boston (writing the majority of my manuscripts on the train in and out of the city) and toil away in a cube for a major publisher. This is not the first publisher I’ve worked for. The…

    Read more